


What Do You Call a Rat In a Blizzard?

by Normal_Ghost



Series: Anyone seen Junkrat? [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ecopoint: Antarctica, Explicit Language, Gen, Isolation, Sadstuck, vague ending because i don't know how to write, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9482249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Normal_Ghost/pseuds/Normal_Ghost
Summary: After a rather explosive game of elimination at Ecopoint: Antarctica, Junkrat finds himself in a bit of a sticky situation. Even though he's a bit battered up, there's no need to worry, because he's gonna get out of there in no time.Right?





	

All he could hear was a noise. What was it? At first he thought it was Roadhog snoring, but it just kept going. Was it a fan? It almost sounded like running water. He hadn’t heard that sound in a long time. No, not quite like water, it sounded like fast, far-away wind. Junkrat supposed he could open his eyes at this point to investigate.

“Hooley dooley!” he grumbled as his eyes batted open, but he couldn’t see much. It was like his head was stuck in something? Junkrat lifted up his face, and saw a dimly lit snowy ravine surrounding him, and an imprint of his face in the snow.

“Well would ya’ look at that!” Junkrat chuckled as he took to his feet. His hands went to brush the snow off his body, but his right arm felt, heavier. Investigating, his bionic hand was completely crushed and mangled, ew, along with a lot of the fleshy arm above it.

“That’s just mickey mouse,” he grumbled, starting to take off the rig with his left hand, “bah, this looks worse than the time that I fell off the top a Big Ben and just used me arm to break the fall. Fall..” Junkrat looked up and saw a large opening at the top of the cavern, with the wind and snow rushing above

“Ah that’s it then! I lobbed into this cavern and must’a passed out! Let’s see, where was I before this,” he mused while taking off the last connectors from his mechanical hand, “We was on a mission, and we were in Ecopoint I think--That’s it! It was a game of elimination! But how’d I get here?” The large metal mess dropped off his right side and Junkrat wonderingly plopped to the floor.

“Let’s see, it was the last round, it was me, Mei and D.Va--D.Va! Right! Pharah had it out for us, so D.Va was flighin’ up to get her, and I used a concussion bomb to get to her height, but then Pharah was aiming at D.Va, but the drongo missed, and that missile hit me instead, oi! I musta gone flyin’! That’s it!” he exclaimed triumphantly, “Brilliant deduction Mr. Fawkes!” Junkrat looked at his HUD, and it said that there was no game currently in play.

“Ah, we musta’ won then! Since I’m not dead and the game’s not going no more. Now to get back to base,” Junkrat said as he stood up, “Might wanna do a quick inventory first--so me right arm and me stub’s busted, but the flesh one’s ain’t bodgy so it’s doing fine, now me pegleg, ah! It’s fine as well! Well, well damn, it is having a spot of trouble, but it can take me weight just fine. And the frag launcher--where’s the frag launcher.” His head spun around left and right looking for his favorite gun.

“It’s not--ah dammit there it is,” he sighed seeing it perched precariously at the top of the ravine, “Well at least she’s safe for now. My rip-tire--is stuck up in the wall of the ravine. Crikey, I musta tumbled something fierce down here. I got my detonator in my pocket, ooh! And two concussion mines! Perfect. Lastly, my good friend the steel trap, oh hoo hoo hoo!” Junkrat collected himself, then began scanning the walls for a path out.

“So it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to _walk_ out, but--but that sure hasn’t stopped me before,” he chuckled as he set up a concussion grenade, “It seems the walls are a bit higher than this bastard’s used to launching me, but I guess I’m in luck that I’ve got two. But how am I gonna have time to throw out the next one proper in the air, if I could grab onto the walls I could give it a burl, but what can I use to latch on--ahahaHA! The steel trap, I’ll sink that bastard’s teeth into the wall, it’s perfect! Perfect perfect perfect!” Junkrat continued chuckling as he set the open steel trap in the clutches of his left hand, and held onto the detonator with his mouth.

“Who says two hands are better than one?” he garbled through his teeth, “Haha, fire in the hole!” His tongue hit the detonation button, and he soared into the sky. At the height of his arc, he slammed the weight of his body and the steel trap’s jaws into the icy wall of the ravine, and with a resounding crunch, he was successfully dangling a little over halfway up the side of the ravine.

“Haha! Success! Now just to--to--dammit.” Even though Junkrat was exactly where he wanted to be, he was still one limb short of being able to pull off his plan. There was no way to hang on long enough to throw out the concussion mine far enough to set him on the right trajectory. He struggled for a little bit, first trying to get his legs tangled in the wall or the trap to keep his weight up, but he realized that he desperately needed his other arm.

“Oh this is gonna hurt like a bluey,” he winced as he jammed what was left of his right arm into the traps rigging. It didn’t hurt too much, until he had to release his left hand and almost all of his weight was being held up by his broken arm.

“Fuck me dead!” he screamed to distract himself from the pain, throwing out the concussion mine, pushing off the side of the ravine wall with his legs, and letting go of the steel trap. It was a tricky maneuver in the best of times, but luck wasn’t on his side today. To avoid having the force of the mine blowing his legs off, the angle had to be just so, but because he hadn’t been paying that much attention to the throw, it took a few airborne rotations before the conditions were right for him to set off the explosion. Junkrat flew up the wall of the ravine, he could just see Ecopoint: Antarctica over the top of the cliff, his hand scrambling to catch hold of something, but he just wasn’t close enough. Screaming, he plummeted back down into the snowy hole.

“At least that landing was better than the first,” he grumbled, brushing himself off and looking back up into the sky, “Dammit I was so close! No matter, at least I’m fairly close to the map, and me grenade launcher’s sticking out in the snow, they’ll see it in no time.” Junkrat plopped down to the floor and started working on the broken mess that was his right hand.

“Mei and D.Va are gonna want to celebrate, and how much of a figjam would you gotta be to not notice one of your three teammates is missing? Ha!” he continued chuckling to himself as he pulled some of the unusable parts out of the broken metal arm. After awhile, he heard the wind stop blowing overtop of the ravine.

“Yeah no rush guys!” he called out jokingly, “Hell, if they’d asked the other team to help out they’d’ve found me in a split. I mean Pharah’s got that jetpack, and who else was there, Tracer and Reaper? Man just a great group.”

“I mean, Mei and I talk all the time, she always plays so hard to get, but I know she loves me. I mean, why else would she target me for headshots constantly when we’re on opposing sides! She even teases me on the same side by trying to freeze me after I talk to her.”

“And D.Va and I are so close. So close! She keeps playing like she doesn’t know me. ‘Who are you again?’ ‘When did we start letting hobos play?’ ‘Get your dirty hands of my MEKA!’ Classic D.Va.”

 

“Crikey, and the other team won’t ever stop talking about me, I mean, Pharah doesn’t really notice me that often, but Reaper is always up my ass. ‘Stay in formation!’ ‘’Stop endangering your team!’, he’s gonna give me an earful when they find me!”

 

“Oh and Tracer, we’re always going back and forth. Like, when I kept bugging her about her bombs, or that stint where I was giving her shit about her little line, ‘Cheer’s love, the cavalry's here’”

 

“They’ll all be here in no time.”

 

* * *

 

Junkrat was never good at keeping track of time, but nightfall really snuck up on him. Before he knew it, the ravine was completely dark, and he could see the waxing moon overhead.

“They all probably had missions to go to afterwards, I get that. This ‘Overwatch’ business can get crazy, I can’t remember the last time I could just sit down and work like this. Heh, at least I’m not getting too cold out here. ‘Negative unforeseen side effects of long-term radiation exposure’ my ass, name one other person not from the GAFA that could sit here shirtless in Antarctica without feeling nippy. This might be the first time where I don’t feel like a human hottie.” Junkrat set down the metal arm, he wasn’t able to get much progress done on fixing it; it was in awful shape after the impact, and with only one hand and no tools, he wasn’t getting anywhere fast.

“May as well hit the sack, s’not likely anyone’s gonna come looking for me at this time’a day,” Junkrat said, yawning, and fluffing up some snow to act as a makeshift pillow.

He wasn’t sure how long he slept, the pain from his very broken arm had been making him much drowsier than usual. When he awoke, however, he could hear the faint sound of gunfire in the distance.

“Ah-HA! The crew is back in action! Won’t take long before some airborne bastard notices me or my gun and gets me out of here! I knew keeping that thing bright yellow was a good idea,” he chuckled to himself.

“Hey mugs! Notice anything missing?!” he called out jokingly, then sat back down to look at his arm with the daylight. Fuck things didn’t look good.

The metal cybernetic looked about the same as it did last night, but his fleshy upper arm was turning all sorts of unhealthy colors. He also hadn’t noticed the bits of dried blood speckled around the base of the ravine yesterday.

“Ah, and I suppose that’d be mine,” he sighed as he did a more thorough self-examination. He had cuts and bruises all over his body (no surprise there), along with a pretty nasty gash on his forehead, torso, and a bit of bone sticking out of his bad arm.

“Well that’s not--great,” he supposed, sitting back down in the snow. He was also hungry as hell, but all he could find on him was a half-filled flask of boba tea.

“At least it’s still cold!” he chuckled halfheartedly, and drank the rest of it in one big swig. After a bit of grumbling he sat back down and waited for someone in the nearby game to notice him.

 

Then he stopped hearing gunfire. He stopped hearing gunfire for a long time.

“Bunch’a ratbags,” he grumbled, standing up and walking down the ravine, “You’ve all been making me wait so long I gotta turn the lower side of this pit into a shit house.”

 

It took until after the sun had passed over the ravine until he heard distant gunfire in Ecopoint again.

“Hey!” Junkrat screamed louder, “Dipsticks! There’s someone here! Stop shootin’ each other and get me out of here! Hello!? Listen to me ya drongos! How can not one of you hear me?” After calling out until his voice got hoarse, he grumpily sat back down.

“Has no one even wondered where I’ve been all day? It’s not like there’s that many of us. Roadhog! Man that bastard’s taking forever to find me! That dumb sod’s really gonna get one after he drags me out of here, he’s got me bored shitless.” Junkrat continued to grumble as he dragged the metal arm closer to himself and started his attempt to salvage it again.

After the sun went down, he couldn’t sleep that night. The shock from the injury had worn off and he couldn’t find a way to lay down that offered any sort of comfort. Instead of sleeping, he started talking to himself again.

“I mean I know we don’t all bunk together, but you’d think someone’d notice that I’m not in the mess hall, or in any games with them that day. I swear if it’s only Roadhog looking for me I’m gonna teach a lesson to those figjams.”

“I mean, I’ve got loads of friends in that crew, right? There’s Roadhog, and Mei, and all those others, and the healers are all looking out for me. Mercy’s probably worried sick about me! Haha, and Ana, her and I have had some great laughs. And McCree! He’s always giving me and Roadhog guff for having a price on our heads. Haha! Tons of blokes out there looking out for me, I’ve got no reason to worry. They’ve just gotta look up the last game I was in, and wham-o! I’ll be outta here in no time!”

Eventually, the sun did come up again. Every so often, Junkrat heard a group at Ecopoint and called out to them, but there was still no luck. At around mid-day, when he had to relieve himself, even he couldn’t hear anyone, he called out how embarrassing it would be if anyone decided to rescue him while his pants were down. During the last game while the sun was going down, his throat was too raw to keep calling out, so he just waited pensively. Soon, there wasn’t any light in his little cavern.

“I suppose I should get some rest tonight,” he said, “Give me arm a chance to heal.”

 

* * *

 

Two more days passed. On one of the days he didn’t hear anyone at Ecopoint at all. Other than the snow and part of his pants, Junkrat hadn’t had anything to eat since the boba tea, and he was becoming extremely agitated.

“When I get out of here, Roadhog and I are gonna rip all of you apart, limb from limb!” he screamed to the distant gunfire, “Shame all of you for not helping out the bastard save me from this ass crack! You know what? I don’t need any of you! I can get out of here myself!” Screaming, he threw himself at the wall again and again, scratching  at the ice, unable to get more than two feet off the ground. His nails were bloody, some of them already torn off.

“No no no, get yourself together Jamison,” he mumbled to himself, holding his head, “you’re not back in oz no more, you’ve learned things, you can get out. Just gotta find some scrap and build something to get out of here.” He looked back at the small pile of metal in the corner of his hovel, aside from the hydraulics in his arm, the dead trigger, and a couple of burnt wires in the remains of the concussion mines, there was absolutely nothing useful left in here.

“Ya just gotta find something else mate, your RIP-tire! It’s right there! You could, um, salvage the parts and come up with a more powerful concussion mine to shoot out of this place! Yeah!” he sputtered as he ran underneath where the tire was lodged into the ravine wall.

“Get out of there you piece of shit!” he yelled up to it, “I ain’t asking twice!” After staring at it obstinately, he ran over to his pile of scrap and began throwing things at the tire to dislodge it, with no luck.

“C’mon, what else do we got here,” he mumbled to himself, first rummaging around the floor of the ravine, then patting himself down, “ahaHA! My total mayhem, I forgot about you little bastards!” Carefully, Junkrat started to disengage the canisters attached to his chest, and take out the live grenades and place them in the snow.

“I only got six shots, so you better not be thinkin’ of staying up there, ya drongo!” he called up to the RIP-tire. He aimed, then lobbed the first grenade towards the base of the tire. It bounced off the wall to the left of his target and exploded in the snow behind him.

“Playin’ hard to get are we?” he mumbled before aiming his next toss. The next missed, and the third hit the tire but failed to explode before bouncing off.

“Damn sensitivity set too low,” he grumbled, sitting down in the snow, trying to modify his bombs. However, without tools, any attempts to adjust his creations were useless.

“Fuck me! You know what? I can work with this!” he screamed as he lobbed the next bomb to land on top of the tire. His aim was perfect--the grenade bounced once, then exploded right where he intended. Junkrat cheered, but the RIP-tire didn’t move. The sun was beginning to set over Antarctica.

“Are you--?! Fine, I got two more of those for ya!” He threw the fifth bomb in the same arc as the fourth, and it exploded on second impact, but the tire sat unmoving. Taking a deep breath, Junkrat wound up his arm and aimed one last time. The tire hit the ravine wall, bounced into the air, and exploded in the snow next to him. Screaming, he started ripping out his hair and throwing himself against the walls. He screamed and screamed until his voice was completely gone, then curled up in the snow, crying.

“That was me last shot, mate, why did you do that to me?” Junkrat sobbed, “When Roadhog finds me I’m gonna be a right mess and it’s all your fault.” He stopped crying for a moment, then sat up.

“He should’a found me by now, right? This was the last place I’ve been, it’s in all the log books. D.Va and Pharah would’a seen me go flying, right? It wouldn’d’ve been too hard to have remembered that, I mean I was her teammate,” Junkrat said, sniveling, as he sat back up, “And I’m right outside Ecopoint, a quick look and you can see my frag launcher, ’s bright yellow. Everyone remembers me gun, right?”

“I’m not just some randy you can forget, I mean, I mean I’m Junkrat! I’m the funny guy, with the explosions, and, and the crazy hair and all my bombs, right?” he kept asking no one in particular, “You can’t have these Overwatch missions without me. Right?” The wind started up again, and for the first time in a long time, Junkrat started to really feel the cold.

“And Roadhog, he’s my best mate. Sure, he started out as a gun for hire, but, but we’re more than that, aren’t we? I mean, he doesn’t like talking to me much, but we’ve been through so many heists. He’s saved me ass more times than I can count. I mean all that ‘shut up’ stuff was just playful banter, right? It’s how he shows he cares 'bout me. I mean, that’s how everyone shows they care about me,” breathing heavily, Junkrat curled up into himself to conserve heat, “does anyone care about me?”

 

“I mean, they can’t all hate me as much as they say, I’m not--not, not that bad, am I? Sure I get into trouble, and blow myself up, and blow everyone else up, and sometimes blow up important stuff, and get in the way, and waste the health packs, and talk to much, and get on their nerves but, but they’d worry about me, right? They could find me if they wanted to?”

 

 

“I never meant to hurt anyone--I mean, I guess I always did--but they’re all ok with it, yeah? It’s not like it’d be better off for everyone if I was dead. Everyone has their roles! Symetra’s always going on about that, we’ve all got a function and whatever. People care about my function. I’m, I’m there to keep people out, or to make it hard to enter an area. My--my traps can stop them. I mean, I’m important. Aren't I important?”

 

 

“But beyond that, people like me for me, f-for Junkrat. I’ve got such a-a great sense a’ humor. People laugh at my jokes? I mean, I’m not watch-ching them, but they’re funny. I got, I got lots to love about me.”

 

 

 

“W-what if I was such a dill I never noticed?” he sighed quietly, his face contorting with the cold and the pain, “Why would they want ol’ Junkrat around? All I d-do is cause problems for the rest of the t-t-team. They probably found m-me gun and figured I had bit the big one, I mean, if y-you die outs-s-side of the b-boundaries, you don’t come b-back. T-they--they didn’t-t think it w-was w-worth the t-t-time to check-k my corpse. I-I’m j-just a j-j-joke.”

 

 

 

“I-I’m n-not just-t a j-j-joke, a-am I?!” he asked again with the last of his voice, and as always, no one answered.


End file.
